While putting some 1967 Topps cards up for sale today, I noticed that on George Sauer’s card, the name on the back of his jersey was covered. That’s interesting, I thought, the jersey must have had someone else’s name on it. So I did some digging to figure out whose.

First I looked at Sauer’s other cards, and I found that his 1966 Topps card showed the same covering over the name. Sauer was a rookie in 1965, so I guessed that the pictures on his 1966 and 1967 cards came from a photo session early in 1965, before he had a jersey with his name on it. I then looked at pro-football-reference.com to see who wore number 83 the prior season, 1964. I found that it was Bill Rademacher. Rademacher switched to number 23 in 1965, so I’ll bet the jersey Sauer is wearing says “Rademacher” under the tape.

Sauer did pretty well wearing number 83. He played six seasons for the Jets, and he had over 1000 yards receiving in three of those seasons, 1966 through 1968. He lead the AFL with 75 receptions in 1967, and he had eight catches for 133 yards in Super Bowl III, the Jets’ famous upset of the Baltimore Colts.